The invention concerns a device for building up a workpiece exclusively or predominantly by deposit welding.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,558,846 to Ujiie is directed to an apparatus for constructing a vessel having a substantially circular cross section by welding wherein a hollow cylindrical workpiece is produced on a rotary table using a single-piece form shoe extending with two jaws from both sides around the workpiece wall to be built up. Coordinated with the form shoe are several welding heads for deposition of the deposit filler metal. While the workpiece being built up performs a rotary movement, the form shoe and the coordinated welding heads are moved in a direction parallel with the longitudinal axis of the workpiece. All that is possible with this device is the production of regular rotary bodies of equal wall thickness.
Additionally known from the German Pat. No. 29 41 849 is a method for producing structural components by electroslag welding where a multiple part metal form is joined with a preformed workpiece part and a molten pool is produced in the peripherally closed form for supplementing the workpiece. The workpiece shape is given by the metal form so that any variation in the workpiece shape requires another metal form.
The problem to which the invention is directed is to provide a device by which bodies of any shape can be produced by deposit welding. Previously unresolved, this new problem is solved by the present invention.